And the lights go out in Cleveland, again and again and again
As I walked up to the door at Talkies yesterday, it looked awfully desolate for a Saturday morning. Imagine my surprise when the note on the door said “Power out, I will open as soon as it comes on”.
I thought this situation sure complicates things. Meet the Bloggers was scheduled to begin at noon at Talkies. Since I was incredibly early, I needed to find somewhere with power to wait. The West Side Market loomed large in my sights, and I immediately thought of a place to wait The Market Cafe Restaurant. I always meant to eat breakfast there some day but whenever we go to the market we always seem to end up at the bratwurst stand.
Yesterday will not be the last day I eat at The Market Cafe Restaurant. May I suggest the Eggs Benedict? I am a connoisseur of that dish if I say so myself. That had to be some of the best Hollandaise sauce ever.
I settled in with my paper and a cup of coffee to wait until it was almost twelve o’clock.
Luckily, for me my timing was good and I met George, Roger,Bill and Jeff talking outside of Great Lakes Brewery. We decided to drive down to the Town Fryer but before we left we all went into Great Lakes. Lucky thing that we did because Russell of BuckeyeSenateBlog fame and his wife Francie had driven up from Central Ohio. We spent the afternoon in the Great Lakes Pub and although it wasn’t one of our usual places we managed to have a very productive afternoon.
As we left, we noticed that Talkies still did not have power. I had talked to the owner earlier and she was quite perturbed because not only were we scheduled to be there, but she had several other things scheduled to take place at her coffee shop. She said that this loss of power had been happening altogether too frequently and she was thinking of switching from CEI, but just when she thought she would do that the businesses in the area that had CPP started having outage problems.
Granted, yesterday was an extremely windy day, but when we as customers of CEI and Cleveland Public Power pay the highest electricity prices in the state, shouldn’t we have reliable service? Why do we have such high rates but have outdated, old equipment that can’t stand high winds, icy weather, and wetness. Is it time to place this wires underground? Wouldn’t we all be safer if they were underground? Don’t we deserve to have an upgrade in service if we pay the highest prices in the state? If our dollars don’t go to capital improvements and maintenance, where does it go? At first, I only thought of my inconvenience because of the power outage, but what about that business owner whose entire day was disrupted with no revenues and what about those residents that shivered in their homes on one of the coldest days we have had this winter? I think that it is time that we ask our utility companies some hard questions concerning why our electric system is so unreliable during bad weather. Goodness knows, we have enough bad weather in Greater Cleveland.
January 15th, 2006 at 9:47 pm
As I’ve been saying for years, we need to get the wires underground around here if anybody is going to consider us as a town serious about doing business. I read a good while ago that cities in Ireland and the city Paris itself had whole districts with all the wires and cabling underground, and these were the places attracting the new businesses. In New Orleans, recently, the area of the town with underground wiring had utilities even when submerged. Locally, the town of Bedford just put all the wires on its main strip underground, and it’s attractive. Wooster did this a few years ago. In Cleveland, we need to start talking about the basics, like this, that give enhanced functionality and also lend to aesthetics.
January 16th, 2006 at 8:54 am
When my son came for Christmas from Minneapolis, he said to me: “What’s with Cleveland? DThey don’t believe in underground wires?”
So who is making money if we pay the highest electric rates and we have the most dated equipment? Why is it that even the blackout of 2003 changed nothing?